Terran Strategies
In the small amounts of time I have played Zerg Hex, there are multiple Terran strategies, that people either think are very "nooby" or extremely hard to utilize. Most of the Terran strategies here will mostly be solo strategies that can be used by themselves or can be linked together to create your own custom build. Some of these you may already know, or even have used. Defensive Techniques/Strategies 1-The Invincible Camp This strategy is one of the quote, "nooby" strategies which requires a massive amount of vespene to accomplish. This strategy is about utilizing every repair and health upgrade for your front gates, as well as using a large amount of shock troopers or Tanks. The idea is that you want to clear vespene as much as possible and mass a huge amount of farms and converters. You want all the minerals you get to be converted into vespene and then upgrade your wall/gates to the max upgrade of 50. After you get your maxed Wall upgrades, you want to just sit behind your wall, putting a tech lab at the back with a construction yard. You'll stack a massive amount of builders on the Walls to repair and a decent number of shock troopers to debuff all incoming enemies. They will also be used to snipe any hatcheries that will be built at the front of your gate. It is almost impossible to win with this strategy, all you can do is piss off your allies. Technically, it IS possible to win if you can fire 6 Ion cannon shots ... but you won't live that long unless you have a lot of buggo's, which you need to venture out to get. I have won once with this strategie. Took 2 hours. Seriously, use this as a last resort only (unless your trolling ofc). 2-Anti-Strikeling (outdated as Strikeling spawners are capped at 30) Most people now mass a large amount of strikelings to delay the Terrans. The main reason why is because strikelings have the best burst damage on the Hex for cheap. The best way to take out a large mass of units are of course, Shock Troopers. Although people believe that Elite Marines are better, I like to disprove them. When dealing against mass strikelings, Shattering Laser won't save anyone. The easiest way to stop the strategy are Shock Troopers, because of Paralyzing Shock and the massive amount of AOE. For defense, you want to keep your Shock Troopers nearby the lake that tends to be in front of your base. You want to have an armory on them at ALL times. You might also want to put a tech lab nearby for increased vision. 3-The Hole The hole is easy to do and cheap. What you need to do is make a 1x2 hole in your wall (2x2 for bigger zergs). Just so you know, your walls should ALWAYS be two walls thick. All the zerg will funnel through that hole upon seeing an enemy attacking them, so you can do some type of anti-mass strategies with it as well as untilize the Shattering Laser upgrade so the rounds bounce better. Or you can go the more economical route and use Shock Troopers. The easiest way to start this strategy is instead of going for an armory, you should go for a Construction Yard and the get the "Advanced Build" upgrade for 100 vespene. Advanced build will allow you to create walls without losing two vespene and will allow you to make an INFINITE amount of walls, making the "Hole" as long as you want it to be. Keep in mind, as long as you have a way to your soldiers, the creeps will not attack the walls unless told to. 4-Hive Walls Hive Walls, or what I like to call it, Hiving. Hiving is when you make multiple copies of "Hole" close by so they intersect, making a weird dot like pattern. The reason why this is viable is because when zergs turn, it decreases the unit's acceleration. Hiving will make the zergs turn a huge amount of times, and add shock troopers with Paralyzing Shock and you have a very efficient defense. However it uses a lot of space and coordination, therefore it is barely ever used 5-Maze Mazing in this game is a hit or miss, it requires the zerg to be able to target your soldiers at the end of a maze of walls. Thats pretty much it, also you can stick a random battery at the end of the maze. The zerg path finding is to go past the battery so they just shimmie around, unable to go past it. Personally I use a combination of this and the hole. I wall up in front of my armory and then make the hole at the far end of said wall, making for a short, but effective maze Attack Techniques 1-Phalanx The "Phalanx" is the idea of placing Marines across the front to kill most things and 3-4 Shock Troopers charged in the back to focus down threatening targets. Keep your batteries on a hotkey and whenever you've advanced a little further, select them and then add another rally point closer to your frontline. It requires a lot of attention to get this to work until your used to it, but it is very reliable once mastered. You should use the Shock Troopers to snipe the Spine Crawlers and hydralisks and the Marines to overdrive repeatedly to help push. The batteries are your supply line, keep 'em alive, because should they die, then you are retreating to avoid running out of energy, giving the Zerg more time. 2-Early Reaper push If you want to start pushing super early (before 8 minutes) then you are going to have to use Reapers as well. This is because they benefit from no energy and effectively take down structures. The minimum necessary to push in this way is 4 Marines, 1 Battery, 2 Shockies, 6 reapers and Generator lvl 2 (3 makes a huge difference). Use 2 waves of the Shockies to kill the first spine and then move in. Try to focus the units with the Marines, buildings with Reapers and priority targets with the Shockies. Don't forget to Eco whilst microing! 3-Big Spine tipps The Big Spines on the low ground are easier to kill than most Terrans think, as long as you don't do something stupid. Stupid things include: Attacking with Reapers, attacking with less than 15 marines, not using buffs (Techlab Bubble and Overcharge), going in and out indecisively (without waiting for your units to heal before commit), pushing into one when there are so many Zergs coming your barely holding anyways (especially strikelings) As for how you should do it: Target spines that have spawners behind them, so that you can actually get meaningful damage (don't forget about the sides!), start a distance away and move command under it, cast the bubble at where your units are going to be, then tell the marines to attack it and cast overcharge. You should lose a max of 5-6 marines like this. As for the Spines outside the Zerg base, station your units diagonally away from the ramp, scan the high ground, bubbe, move next to the Ramp and overcharge. Like this you only have to deal with 1 of the Spines at a time. Also Elite Marines make quick work of these, even without a bubble.